Reporting on my Thursday

Thankfully, the pain of the last weekend has faded mostly away. I am still getting the occasional spasm, and sneezing still kills, but otherwise, I'm good.

So today was a nice day. I had to stay up a little to get what I needed to done in The Cabin, but that's fine. I can't finish it this week, particularly since I need to get lots of stuff done in The Mars Betrayal in a short period of time.

I started my day, as I planned, by getting to work on The Mars Betrayal. I wrote a new chapter that should take the book in the correct direction. I've ramped up tension and have tried to explore my characters more. In the first version, I know that I allowed the vocabulary constraints to affect the story telling I was trying to do. Not this time. I will tell the story and then work on the vocab. So I spent about 2 and a half hours on this project and stopped at noon to help Annemarie get out of here on time to get the older boys to their Spanish school. Lily, our only girl, went and had a play date at a friend's house, so it was just me and the little guy, Nathaniel. We took a walk, which I really enjoyed, then he got to watch a little Baby Einstein.

While he watched that, I had some lunch and read a little in the Book of Mormon. It's a good book, I tell you. When he was done, Annemarie was back, so we put him down for a nap and I went to get Lily so that Annemarie could read the chapter I did this morning. When I got back, she pointed some things out but mostly approved. Then I took a nap.

I did this nap thing because I haven't been sleeping very well. I think it may be stress related, as well as due to not sleeping at a consistent hour. Anyway, my nap was just over an hour, which was fine, but a little long. I ate a snack of raisins and then took a reading walk in the brisk afternoon. Annemarie had left to pick up the older boys, taking the other two, just as I woke up, so I was on my own.

With my walk done, I read a little more, but then got back to work and wrote an article on www.helium.com. Hey, I'm in second place in a contest that will finalize tomorrow! Isn't that shocking? I'm at 801 articles. I really hope to hit a thousand this year. One a day will get it done. I also rated quite a bit, as I feel like my citizenship on Helium has been sad.

Anyway, I then opened up The Cabin and started to go through it so I could pick up the thread. But it was dinner time.

After the kids were in bed, we watched the first episode of this season's The Office. Then I wrote in The Cabin. I did just over two thousand words in just over an hour! Woohoo! I got rolling, and it felt great. Mike is an enjoyable character to work with. I'm interested in his story.

So I did what I set out to do this morning. Making goals, doing them, and now reporting on them. It's a divine pattern. Now I need to hit the sack. Tomorrow I need to exercise, hit the chiropractor one last time, and then do more on The Mars Betrayal, The Cabin and www.helium.com. Hopefully I will get one of the jobs I've applied for. I would like the one at The Friend, as it's in my chosen field and pays well. But I would take the Testing Supervisor job here at BYU as well.

I need to stop. This is long. If you've made it this far, you are either a true friend or family. That's practically the same thing.

My dream. My bestseller that I WILL write.

carpe somnium

Taking more shape

The end of Thursday has rolled around and it was better than I expected. The entire day was better, I mean, not just the end.

Right. In any case, here's what I did:

I started my day by reading through some information that Blake asked me to integrate into the User Manual. I spent a couple hours getting through it and taking note of the highlights and some of the details.

By the way, I exercised again this morning and felt strong. It was a great feeling to lift that 130 lb. barbell twelve times, two more than I expected. What a rush. And I usually walk most of the time, with some good jogging thrown in here and there for my cardio and weight loss portion, but my legs didn't want to run. So I mostly just walked for about an hour. I intend to do over an hour tomorrow morning. I am too impatient and I keep hoping that my pants will get loose faster and that my chest will firm up overnight and such.

Being impatient as a weight loser and a writer doesn't really work. So I'm learning patience.

Anyway, by the time I finished going through the info from Blake, it was time to deal with kids. You see, at about noon, Annemarie (my hot wife) feeds the older boys (sometimes the younger two (a girl and a boy) as well) and then heads out to take them to Spanish School. So that leaves me and Lily and Nathaniel. I usually feed them, play with them and then put the toddler, Nathaniel (he's nearly two) down for a nap. Then I goof off sometimes with Lily, or sometimes she takes a nap a little later or sometimes I just make her go play. But I eat lunch usually after the little guy's in bed.

So today, after getting the bald-ish, albino monkeys dealt with, I rewrote the chapter that the information was supposed to go into. Then I let Blake know that I was ready to finish the manual if he could just get me the last bit.

However, I forgot something just now. Actually, while changing Nathaniel's mess before his nap, I had a pretty good idea for a graded reader. So before I wrote up the new chapter for the User Manual, I wrote the outline for this new idea I had. It is tentatively titled The Honeymoon, and it follows a young couple on a hike for part of their honeymoon. She falls down a long drop and breaks her leg badly and he has to rescue her. But he's terrified of heights. Anyway, it's an adventure/romance. So I wrote that outline proposal up and printed it out for Annemarie to look at when she got back.

Then I did the chapter and e-mailed Blake.

Then when Annemarie got back (soon after) I had her look at the outline. She thought it was really cool. So I reworked it a bit and sent it off to the editorial team.

Now, you remember yesterday's post, how I didn't think I would have the time to do much in The Cabin? Well, I made time and got right about 2000 words done. I really like seeing it take a different, more complete shape from the outline I wrote months ago. Mike is a fun character to follow around, and boy howdy, my past is full of rich things to add to the story.

Well, this is long, but it felt like a good day. I worked hard, actually made some money, and hopefully moved toward getting that bestseller I am going to write. Heck, I may be writing that bestseller now! But let it be said that, while I don't know when, I am going to write a bestseller. I know it.

carpe somnium